Better Collective Acquires Skycon Limited and Upgrades its Financial Targets for 2023

In order to realise the vision of becoming the Leading Digital Sports Media Group, Better Collective expands its efforts within digital display advertising by acquiring Skycon Limited for a total consideration of up to 45m GBP.

Upgrade of financial targets 2023

Skycon Limited will be consolidated into the Better Collective Group. Better Collective upgrades its financial targets for 2023 as follows:

Revenue of 305-315m EUR (previous 290-300m EUR)

EBITDA before special items of 95-105m EUR (previous 90-100m EUR)

Net debt to EBITDA before special items <2.0 (unchanged)

About Skycon Limited

Skycon Limited (Skycon) is a British company founded in 2017 and is run out of Newcastle-under-Lyme, England. The company specialises in display advertising with an “audience-based” approach, which is paid advertising on channels such as sports media. Skycon’s approach is highly complementary to Better Collective’s existing Paid Media approach with a “search engine-based” approach. The acquisition will increase the addressable market for Better Collective’s Paid Media division and will further increase its value proposition towards the Group’s diverse business partners.

Better Collective will integrate the business into its existing Paid Media operations and will take over Skycon’s substantial recurring revenue share database. Skycon has seen great growth, which Better Collective expects to fuel further with several cross-selling synergies, while also improving its own business through operational synergies.

Synergy highlights

• Skycon has solely worked with one sportsbook and Better Collective will expand this to its global network of sportsbooks.
• Better Collective will be able to broaden the geographical scope of Skycon for instance into the US.
• Better Collective will redirect future new depositing customers (NDCs) to its best-in-class global sportsbook agreements, which will increase the value per future NDC delivered.
• Skycon will be utilised on the AdTech platform which Better Collective is currently building.

Jesper Søgaard, Co-founder & CEO of Better Collective, said: “We have invested heavily in growing our Paid Media division to reach its current significant scale, while we also have invested in moving revenues to recurring revenue share contracts. During the past year, our efforts have proven successful and acquiring Skycon will be highly synergistic to this journey. Skycon is a great business, which is built on Better Collective’s favored revenue share model. It is a perfect fit as we can leverage our leading skill set within media buying to grow Skycon’s revenues. We also see a clear path to further growth as the asset can be scaled across more of our business partners, into new territories, and optimized with our unrivaled first party data in sports media. This acquisition will further deepen our moat.”

Transaction details

Better Collective will pay up to 45m GBP on a cash and debt free basis, including an upfront cash consideration of 25m GBP and up to 20m GBP in earn outs. The earn outs are based on certain financial performance targets in the 12 months post closing period. The acquisition will be funded by cash, and the earn-out is estimated to be at least 50% financed by the existing revenue share database.